China Jan new bank loans beat forecast at 1.3 tln yuan

BEIJING: Chinese banks lent 1.32 trillion yuan ($217.6 billion) worth of new yuan loans in January, beating a forecast of 1.1 trillion yuan and well above the previous month's 482.5 billion yuan in a traditional lending surge at the start of the year.

Central bank data showed on Saturday that the broad M2 money supply rose 13.2 percent last month from a year earlier, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website, in line with a Reuters poll forecast of a 13.2 percent rise.